A new report released today by The Wilderness Society raises the alarm about wild lands threatened by extractive industries eager to exploit the resources on or underneath them, including oil, gas and coal.

When President Obama visits Alaska at the end of August, climate change will be a key focus of his trip. The Wilderness Society developed the following memo to provide a brief primer on key Alaska public lands where the effects of climate change can already be seen.

The National Wilderness Preservation System (NWPS), established by the Wilderness Act in 1964, is the world’s largest and best-protected conservation system. But it falls short in its protection of the full range of 553 ecosystem types found on national public lands in the lower 48 s